


Requiescat in Pace

by hanap



Series: 13 Days of Halloween [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Kiss, Halloween prompt fills, M/M, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), a resolution to the wall slam, tried for spooky and ended up with soft, unbeta'd we fall like Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:22:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27104167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanap/pseuds/hanap
Summary: It's a few days after the apocalypse that wasn't, and Aziraphale has insisted on visiting Tadfield Manor, to Crowley's intense confusion. (A prompt fill for racketghost's13 Days of Halloween.)
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: 13 Days of Halloween [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978309
Comments: 41
Kudos: 138
Collections: Racket’s 13 Days of Halloween





	Requiescat in Pace

**Author's Note:**

> Day 1: Ghost

“Are we nearly there?”

“Yeah.” Crowley glanced at Aziraphale out of the corner of his eye. There was tension in every line of the angel’s posture – even the way he gripped the handle above his head was oddly stiff. Crowley’s brow furrowed. “You sure you’re alright?”

“Oh, yes,” Aziraphale said, gazing into the distance out the window. “Just thinking.”

“Châteauneuf-du-Pape for your thoughts, angel.”

The corners of Aziraphale’s mouth lifted. “Well.” He was worrying at the hem of his waistcoat, Crowley saw, in the way that Aziraphale did when he was struggling to work through something in his head. “Thinking of what I’m going to say, I suppose.”

“You’re just going to talk to a human.” Crowley watched Aziraphale, puzzled. “What are you so worried about?”

“ _Lord,_ Crowley, keep your eyes on the road!”

Crowley jerked the steering wheel and the Bentley careened away from the startled pedestrian, right into the path of an oncoming bus – he swerved back into the right lane, a hairsbreadth away from discorporation. He rolled his eyes. “How often are we going to have to go through this?”

“A great many more times, I expect, since years and years of driving have obviously taught you _nothing_ about road etiquette,” Aziraphale said huffily, but Crowley could see him smiling as he looked back out the window. It had only been a few days since the Armageddon that wasn't, but Crowley allowed himself to relax just the slightest bit at the promise of _years and years_. 

\--

“I _still_ don’t understand what this is all about.”

Aziraphale only shushed him before knocking lightly on the door. “Come in,” a voice called.

Aziraphale gave Crowley a significant glance before he turned the doorknob. "After you." Crowley shrugged and stepped inside, deciding that he'd probably find out sooner or later what this was all about. 

“Can I help you?” A dark-haired woman dressed smartly in a tailored suit and heels was shuffling distractedly through some documents on her desk. She tucked them into an envelope and filed them neatly away into a drawer before at last she turned to face them. Crowley said nothing, only raised an eyebrow. 

Her eyes widened almost comically, and she stepped back in alarm. “Satan preserve us. Master Crowley,” she said weakly. “And… and your… friend.”

Crowley glanced furtively at Aziraphale, but to his disbelief, the angel only nodded in acknowledgment, without any objection whatsoever. He exhaled quietly, relieved beyond words, inwardly marvelling at this new state of affairs. _Our side._ For one wild moment, he almost reached out – to do what, he wasn't sure, maybe he would have touched Aziraphale's shoulder, perhaps he might have even dared to grasp Aziraphale’s hand – but to his eternal gratitude, the angel began to speak before he could do anything incredibly stupid.

“Hello. Mary Loquacious, I believe? Formerly of the Chattering Order of St. Beryl?”

“Y-yes. Hodges, actually.” She swallowed visibly. “And you are?”

“My name is Aziraphale.” He waited for a moment, but no reply seemed forthcoming. Mary, for all her usual chattiness, seemed quite at a loss, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. “Don’t be afraid,” Aziraphale continued, a reassuring smile on his face. “We’re only here to have a quick talk. Do you mind if we sit down?”

“Oh.” Mary seemed to recover herself somewhat at that. “Oh, yes. Please. Have a seat.” She gestured at the two wooden chairs before her desk, looking dazed as she brushed her hair away from her forehead. “What – what can I do for you, er… gentlemen?”

“I’m just his chauffeur,” Crowley said, jerking his head in Aziraphale’s direction.

“Really, Crowley.” Aziraphale said quietly. “Not now, please.”

With one last roll of his eyes, Crowley gave in. “Fine. He just wanted to have a word with you.”

“What’s this all about, then?” Mary’s eyes flicked from Crowley to Aziraphale, suspicion creeping into the fear in her tone. “More questions? Another baby to give me?”

“Well, no, actually. Not this time.” Aziraphale leaned forward, and Crowley could actually _feel_ the benevolence rolling off him in waves, the bastard. “I thought you might want to know that Armageddon has come and gone.”

Mary’s jaw dropped. “What – what do you mean?”

“He means the coming of age of the Antichrist.” Crowley scowled at Aziraphale. “Angel, you can’t just drop something like that on a human.”

“Angel?” Mary whispered.

“Er, that’s not important.” Aziraphale waved a hand, looking sheepish. “Yes. The coming of age of the Antichrist. That day has come and gone, and the world has not ended.”

“Obviously,” Crowley drawled, pushing his chair back so it teetered on its back legs. Aziraphale threw him a look _,_ and he desisted with a loud sigh, the front legs of the chair coming down on the hardwood with a thud. Mary flinched at the sound.

“This is _good_ news, Mary,” Aziraphale tried again. “I don’t think you quite see what I’m saying. The world has not ended, despite what you have perhaps been told would happen. And I would even dare say that – perhaps that was how it was intended to happen all along.”

Crowley’s breath left his mouth in a soft huff of shock at this pronouncement, but Aziraphale took no notice. His gaze was intent on Mary, whose gaze had dropped to her hands folded in her lap. “Oh,” was all she said. She fell uncharacteristically silent, and for a long moment, none of them spoke. 

Crowley glanced at Aziraphale, wondering what he had on his mind, but the angel seemed content to sit and wait. Suddenly, Crowley noticed that there was something strange in the air that he couldn't quite put a finger on, something akin to the stench of death that hung above their heads, indiscernible and shapeless, barely palpable even to his demonic senses. Not anything threatening, but certainly out of place here in this place that the angel insisted was shrouded in – in whatever it was Aziraphale had kept going on about the last time they had been here. 

Finally, Mary broke the silence. “You mean to say… everything that happened – was meant to happen that way?” 

“I do believe so, yes.” Aziraphale nodded. Crowley felt rather as though his heart was scooped out of his chest in increments every time Aziraphale said it, and he wondered distantly how much more of this he was going to have to endure before this little discussion was over.

“You mean…”

Aziraphale smiled at her gently. “You might say it was ineffable.”

Crowley barely restrained a snort. “Sure was.”

Aziraphale ignored him. “Do you understand, Mary?”

Mary looked up at Aziraphale at last, and to Crowley’s surprise, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I – I think so. Yes.”

Aziraphale nodded to himself, as though unsurprised. “I thought you would want to know that.”

“I did. I do.” Mary closed her eyes, her stiff posture relaxing, as though the weight of some burden had been lifted from her shoulders at this admission. Crowley wondered at how she seemed more insubstantial somehow – by some trick of the sunlight spilling in through the window behind her, it seemed like the lines of her body were sharpened by its glow yet somehow also rendered more indistinct, defined by contrast but oddly soft and hazy around the edges. “I’m glad,” she whispered.

 _Oh._ It finally clicked together in Crowley’s head as Mary exhaled slowly, the deep crease in her brow smoothing. Her figure faded to nothing in the sun, leaving the fancy office chair empty behind her. The strange lingering stench lifted, and Crowley thought he might have heard a rustle of cloth behind him, a glimpse of a black cloak rippling into nothing out of the corner of his eye, and he shivered slightly, the memory of the airbase still fresh in his mind. 

Aziraphale sighed. “That’s taken care of, then,” he said soberly, and stood. “Shall we?”

Crowley remained where he was, still stunned at the rapid turn of events. “Angel.”

“Yes, my dear?”

And there it was again, the breath punched right out of Crowley’s lungs, leaving his mouth in a series of scattered consonants. “ _N-ngk._ Did you just –”

“Did I what?” Aziraphale stood over Crowley, gazing at him in a way that left Crowley’s mind fumbling for coherence. From this angle, he knew Aziraphale could see his eyes over the rim of his sunglasses.

“All of it. Everything you just said.”

“I thought she might want to know, that's all."

"Mary, she –”

Aziraphale hummed. "I'm quite surprised you didn't notice it yourself. Didn't you think it was odd that she would stay here after the convent burned down?"

Crowley didn't want to linger overlong on the thought of things _burning down._ "Correct me if I'm wrong, angel, but I think we were _preoccupied_ at the time." He clenched his teeth, repulsed as always by Hastur's propensity for carnage at every opportunity – he could sense it now that he was paying attention, an undertone of despair echoing in the halls, fear and agony clawing with torn nails under the floorboards, though its last remnants were fading quickly now that Mary was gone.

Suddenly, Crowley was distracted from his thoughts as a touch that was at once familiar yet completely alien settled on his tightly clenched hand, and he very nearly flinched away from it. _Aziraphale,_ he thought blankly, looking at the manicured fingers that lay on top of his own, the body warmth of the winged signet ring almost scorching. 

"Preoccupied, yes, I'd say that," Aziraphale agreed. Crowley could feel the heat creeping up his face at the way Aziraphale was looking at him with something like intent in the depths of his eyes.

"You said," Crowley's voice caught, and he cleared his throat. "What you said to her." The words wouldn't leave his mouth. _Years and years,_ he thought, his mouth dry. Six thousand years of planning for an end that never came, and now here they were, and the angel had said that maybe, just maybe that's how it had been intended to be all along, and what was Crowley supposed to _do_ with that information? 

But it was as though Aziraphale could hear the slightly desperate monologue in Crowley's head. "Did I mean it? Yes. Of course.” Aziraphale said with absolute certainty. “All of it. Every word.”

“Oh,” Crowley said, feeling lightheaded all of a sudden, unable to tear his gaze away from the storm that swirled in Aziraphale's eyes. Crowley’s chest rose and fell as his breath quickened, his heart suddenly pounding a loud drumbeat against his ribs as Aziraphale moved closer, his thumb brushing over the back of Crowley’s hand. Perhaps the world had ended after all, Crowley thought dimly, because this certainly wasn’t a reality he’d ever existed in before.

“I do wish you would let me see you,” Aziraphale murmured. “Just as you are.”

His mouth was dry as he tried to speak. “Aziraphale –”

“Only if you want to, of course,” Aziraphale added quickly.

Crowley reached up and took off his sunglasses with trembling fingers, folding them up one-handed and stuffing them clumsily into his breast pocket. When he looked up, he saw Aziraphale gazing at him with an expression that he’d only ever seen in glimpses, caught in split second glances out of the corner of his eye. The full force of it burned like the sun – he could hardly stand to look at Aziraphale, and yet he couldn’t look away.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale whispered. “I would like to make myself abundantly clear now. I have chosen this. And it was the only reason we were able to stop the world from ending.”

“This,” Crowley croaked out through the dryness of his throat.

“You.” Aziraphale’s hand tightened around his. “You were the one I chose.”

“Me,” Crowley echoed in a daze, wishing with all his might that he could find something more intelligible to say, but all his words vanished without a trace as Aziraphale’s hand moved, the heat of it searing as it moved from his hand to his wrist, up his forearm and elbow before finally coming to rest on his shoulder. “Angel –”

“And now, my dear,” Aziraphale bent down until his face was so close to Crowley’s that their noses nearly touched, “I would very much like to continue where Mary interrupted us before. If you don’t mind.”

Crowley could barely breathe, and every muscle of his body was wound taut as a bowstring. He couldn’t speak through the tightness of his throat. He tilted his chin up, a nearly imperceptible movement, and watched as Aziraphale’s gaze moved agonisingly slowly from Crowley’s eyes to his mouth, as the half-lidded blue-green-grey eyes slid shut, as Aziraphale leaned forward and their lips met softly, and Crowley closed his eyes, liberated at last by the benediction of Aziraphale’s kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a very mildly spooky thing but ended up turning into something soft instead, because my brain decided they couldn't go back to Tadfield Manor without finally getting that kiss they didn't get to have the last time they'd been there. 
> 
> Come find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/contraststudies) and [Tumblr!](https://contraststudies.tumblr.com/)


End file.
